There are known protein extraction techniques, including techniques described in the related applications. While protein extraction techniques allow for the acquisition of plant-based protein and refinement of the protein as a viable protein source for mass consumption, the current techniques are limited when the protein source has anti-nutritional components. For many of these protein sources, when generating protein extraction, the extracted protein retains many of these anti-nutritionals. Existing protein extraction techniques fail to account for the anti-nutritional components in the final product, reducing the benefit or even usability of the protein.
A prime example of such anti-nutritionals are vicine and covicine found in fava beans. Fava beans, (Vicia faba L) also referred to as broad beans and fava beans, among other nomenclatures, naturally include the chemical compounds of vicine and covicine along with other anti-nutritionals. While fava beans are globally prevalent as a natural food and protein source, the effectiveness of the fava bean is inherently limited. Favism is a disease that impacts certain people who consume fava beans or other legumes, where these individuals are deficient in the enzyme Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) and are unable to prevent the glycosides, vicine and covicine, from oxidizing to Divicine and Isouramil, respectively.
There are approximately 100 million G6PD deficient individuals in the world, largely concentrated in the Mediterranean, East Asian and North African regions. Therefore, there is a significant barrier to entry for developing and utilizing fava bean for both human and animal consumption due to the presence of vicine and covicine.
The problems associated with plant-based protein sources having anti-nutritional factors are compounded when the protein source is air-classified to a protein concentrate. Compounds impacting taste and health are then generally associated with the lighter protein fraction, thus limiting protein concentrate usefulness. In the example of vicine and covicine, air classification separations are also only partial separations of these anti-nutritional elements, and thus vicine/covicine are still present in the starch and flour fraction.
Prior techniques to overcome anti-nutritional elements include attempts to genetically modify the plant source for breeding out the anti-nutritionals. After many years low tannin fava bean lines exist. This technique is problematic for multiple reasons, including the time and effort required to modify and then generate a commercially consumable crop with regional adaptations for various crop types and specific anti-nutritional factor. There may also be unidentified and unintended consequences of genetically modifying agricultural crops. Moreover, there is a current trend in consumer behavior to avoid genetically modified food sources.
As known in the art, other techniques for specific vicine/covicine removal include cooking techniques, steaming, acid washes, and/or chemical treatments. These techniques are not commercially scalable and have not been proven effective for the complete removal of vicine/covicine.
In addition to the anti-nutritional factors preserved for the end user, nutritional limitations affecting bio-availability of the plant-based proteins have not been addressed by current processing techniques.
Plant-based proteins are often characterized as being inferior to animal proteins due to the limited quantities of sulfur containing amino acids, which are more prevalent in animal tissue. In the interest of providing guidance and scale for protein quality, standards have been developed to grade protein and amino acid quality for the human diet. One such standard is the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS). Another standard is the Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER). Other standards include Biological Value (BV) and ileal digestibility.
PDCAAS, which is an industry commercial grading standard used by food and nutrition companies assesses the percentage of the limiting amino acid on a sample to a reference while multiplying by digestibility. Typical industrial processes are unable to improve upon the digestibility of a protein in its native form. Therefore, plant-based PDCAAS scores typically fall short of those calculated from animal-based proteins.
Industry and academia subject matter experts have focused on the sourcing and breeding for higher nutritional values, including amino acid content and protein value. Customers in the food and beverage industry are frequently looking to leverage validated, value-added nutrient content claims from unique plant-based nutritional ingredients. To date, those customers are forced to invest in multi-source nutritional blends or rely upon soy-based proteins to satisfy an enhanced amino acid (PDCAAS) of complete protein claim.
Therefore, there exists a need for method and process to improve nutritional aspects and provide nutritional enhancements to plant-based protein extracted therefrom.